


Dirty Paws

by QED_Scribblings



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cat adopts human/kitten, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9250007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QED_Scribblings/pseuds/QED_Scribblings
Summary: Answer to Kink Meme prompt:While recovering from everything to do with Grindlewald, Percival Graves is adopted by a cat. It is the ugliest, most beat-up looking cat you've ever seen and it absolutely hates everyone but Percival.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have far too many cats to not write a fill for this one, and poor Percival needs a little buddy to keep him company. Should have the next chapter up soon.

Silence used to be something that he’d enjoyed. Even when he was a child, being badgered into spending time outside, or with children his own age ( _Mercy Lewis, boy! It’s not asking much. Pretend to enjoy it if you must!_ ) he’d always found himself most at comfortable in his room, alone, with a book.

So it was with bitter, _bitter_ disappointment that he discovered, following his much anticipated release from the hospital, that the silence that once felt, to him, like a warm blanket, had become a large pillow. A pillow that was being pressed over his face, smothering him until he couldn’t breathe. God he couldn’t breathe!

Swallowing thickly he got to his feet and crossed over to the window as quickly as they would let him. He unlatched it with shaking hands and heaved it open like his life depended on it. A blast of cold, winter air hit him straight away, but more importantly, so did the noise of the city below.

He let out a deep, shaking breath, his knees buckling beneath him a second later. He slid down to the ground, pressing his forehead to the tops of his drawn up knees as he let it wash over him. It helped, a little. It gave his mind something to focus on. Kept it contained to the here and now, rather than wandering back to events past.

He squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling them a little closer to his chest.

Morgana’s socks, he’d become _pathetic_.

He couldn’t stand to be around people, because they were too loud, too close, too many, too much. And he couldn’t stand to be alone, because then he’d start to remember, he’d start to think.

How the hell was he going to feel normal ever again? His own mind refused to rest for a single moment.

Something touched him. Brushed up against his arm.  

Without thinking he threw himself away from the window, colliding with the corner of the bedside table hard, but he didn’t pay it any mind. He yanked out his wand from his belt and pointed it straight at the intruder, ready to hex it straight back out the window when...

He blinked.

The intruder blinked back, before letting out a bemused meow.

A cat. There was a cat… in his room. A dirty, ragged looking, flat-faced alley cat, sitting primly in the middle of his rug, looking all the world like he belonged there.

He dropped his wand after a moment of deliberation, reaching back instead to rub the bump forming on the back of his head.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” he asked, hating the way that his voice shook and croaked as he did. It had been a while since he spoke out loud he supposed.

The cat carried on eyeing him intently in the middle of the room.

Percival reasoned he probably shouldn’t have expected some sort of explanation from the creature.

Feeling quite foolish for his overreaction he got to his feet with a quiet groan and waved it off.

“Go on, back home with you,” he said, as he attempted to usher it over to the window.

The cat meowed again, flopping down onto the rug instead.

Percival arched his brow.

“You’re being actively unhelpful now,” he sighed, before crouching down, giving the little menace’s belly a gentle prod. “Come on, off with you. You don’t want to stay here, trust me.”

Contrary little bugger that this cat was turning out to be, it let out a loud purr in response.

Percival frowned, glancing around quickly (for who he wasn’t sure. But it felt like something he should check would go unwitnessed) before sitting down properly beside the cat and running his fingers through its matted but soft fur. The corners of his lips twitched upwards a little as this drew even louder purrs from the little creature.

“Look at you. You’ve not got a worry in the world, do you?” he murmured quietly, letting out a soft sigh. “Come when you please, go when you please. Eat what you like. Do as you wish.”

He smiled teasingly as he toyed with one of it’s notched ears. “Fight who you like. I bet you don’t lose, do you?” he said. “You strike me as a bit of a bruiser.”

The cat rolled back to its feet, and for a moment Percival thought it might jump back out the window and carry on it’s way. He found himself saddened, but resigned to the thought. So he was surprised when it, instead, took a moment to rub it’s flat face against his knuckles, before stepping up and settling on his lap.

“And prone to taking liberties it seems,” he drawled, before carefully shifting slightly into a more comfortable position, mindful not to unsettle the cat. Shaking his head he resumed his petting, taking his time to gently untangle some of the minor knots in its black fur.

“You don’t know how good you have it, my friend,” he murmured softly, as the cat purred and shut it’s amber eyes. (In the back of his mind he remember someone, somewhere, mentioning once that that meant a cat trusted you).

“I bet you’ve never had a nightmare in your life, have you?’ he uttered, the corner of his lips quirking up a fraction. “Not one of them.”

He shook his head.

“Count yourself very lucky. They’re horrible things. Entirely inconvenient and they serve absolutely no purpose either,” he said. “Some people say that they’re your mind trying to resolve the trauma. Between you and me, I don’t think those people have had all that many nightmares themselves. I don’t see how dwelling on the nonsense forevermore is supposed to achieve any level of resolution. It seems counter-productive, don’t you think?”

The cat didn’t reply, as cats were wont to do. Instead it carried on purring away mightily in his lap.

He paused a moment, before pulling his hand back, rubbing roughly at his own face instead.

“I’m talking to a cat,” he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s it. It’s official. I’ve gone insane. I knew it was going to happen eventually? Six months in solitary confinement, something had to come unstuck eventual-”

He paused again, before letting out a deep sigh.

“Now I’m talking to myself,” he muttered, letting out a groan before flopping down on the rug himself.

The cat dug it’s claws lightly into his thigh, no doubt out of protest at the change in position.

Percival groaned again, tangling his fingers in his hair, pulling it a little out of frustration, but his attention was stolen when he felt the cat shifting more in his lap.

Frowning, he lifted his head up to find the cat standing up on his lap, taking a moment to stretch before taking a leisurely stroll over his belly and up onto his chest, upon which it sat back down quite happily.

Percival arched his brow.

“You’re making yourself worryingly comfortable here,” he drawled, reaching up to tickle it under the chin a couple of times, before pushing himself upright, gently gathering the furry little creature in his arms.

“Well, my friend. I appreciate the visit,” he murmured as he set it down gently on the fire escape, giving in and reaching out the window to pat it a few more times. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than loiter about in here though. Lucky bastard.”

The cat didn’t move.

He gave it another gentle prod, but again it didn’t shift.

Shaking his head he tickled it under the chin once more before standing up.

“Thanks for the company,” he said, before closing the window once more. The room fell silent again. Percival grimaced. The cat didn’t move. Percival went to make himself coffee.

When he came back, the cat was still there, looking into the room.

Percival frowned.

He tried reading for a moment but it was a bit difficult when he was being watched, even if it was by a cat.

Shooting the little beast a bemused look he picked up his coffee and the book and moved to the lounge room.

Night fell outside. As it did, Percival’s nerves heightened.

The house had grown more silent now, somehow. Except, of course, for when it wasn’t. Except for when a floorboard would creak or upstairs walked across the hardwood with her heels still on, or when the tap started to drip. Each and every time Percival found his hand flying to his wand as he looked around the room for Grindelwald, his followers, a random stranger, a crook he’d locked up years ago, someone, coming to get him, to take him back, to pick off where Grindelwald had left off because it wasn’t over. It would never ever ever be over.

He made it to about 8 o’clock before he couldn’t stand it anymore and decided to try again for sleep. It was a fruitless effort, he could tell already, and one that certainly wouldn’t result in rest. But it was better than sitting on his sofa waiting for attackers that may or may not be coming for him.

He’d quite forgotten about the cat up until then. It was clear from his mind as he flicked his lights on, stripped down to his underwear and set about turning down the bed. He likely would have gone to sleep not thinking about it if it hadn’t chosen that moment to scratch pointedly at the window, it’s claws tapping against the the glass loudly.

Percival whirled around and, for the second time that day, nearly stunned the poor thing out of instinct alone.

A bark of laughter escaped him, quite unexpectedly, when he spotted the source of the noise.

“Why are you still here?” he uttered as he walked over to the window, unlatching it once again and pulling it up.

“Come on, you must have better things to do,” he murmured, tickling the cat under the chin, which it seemed to approve of. “Don’t you have a lady friend or two to visit?”

The cat seemed to pay him no mind as it moved its head this way and that, so Percival’s fingers would scratch him where he wished.

Percival scoffed fondly, giving it one last ticking behind the ears before standing back up.

“Right,” he said. “Enough of this, you need to get going- I’m sorry, what do you think you’re doing?” he said when the cat, as soon as he stopped patting it, got to it’s furry little feet and without any preamble, jumped through the window, trotted across the room and set about making himself at home in the middle of the bed.

Percival shook his head in disbelief.

“You’re a presumptive little thing, aren’t you?” he drawled as he walked over to it and picked it up again, earning a disgruntled meow as he carried it back to the window.

No sooner did he set it down it had zipped back into the room.

Percival arched his brow, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the wall. All the while, the cat was once again making itself at home on his bed.

A cold breeze blew in through the window, prompting goosebumps to spread across his skin.

He shook his head.

“I suppose you’re cold then,” he said, before heaving a deep sigh and turning to shut the window.

‘This is just for the one night, clear?” he said as he checked the latch, then secured the wards of the house one last time (it probably wasn’t the last time), before pulling the curtains and making his way over to the bed himself.

“Don’t go making yourself at home here,” he said as he eased himself down onto the mattress with a small, pained hiss, before pulling the quilt over him. “And don’t come whining to me if come morning you’ve not got a wink of sleep. I did warn you about the nightmare business,” he said, flicking off the lights.

“This is all on you, my friend,” he yawned, rubbing tiredly at his face as he stared up at what little he could make out of the ceiling.

It was funny really. The silence really wasn’t that bad when it was mixed in with the purring of his new friend.


End file.
